400 Animals in Small Shelter: Kind or Cruel?

By LISA W. FODERARO

Published: June 19, 1990

ELMSFORD, N.Y., June 18—
To many animal lovers in Westchester County, Mimi Stone is the patron saint of pets. Her Elmsford Animal Shelter is the only shelter in the county that will neither turn away a pet nor put one to death.

''If a dog is not adopted, he lives here,'' Mrs. Stone said the other day over a din of barking and yipping. ''He doesn't have death hanging over his head.''

But county officials and other animal-protection agencies say Mrs. Stone is a woman who has crossed the line between caring and cruelty. Her policy has led to severe overcrowding, and that, they say, has created ''horrendous conditions'' for the more than 400 dogs and cats at the quarter-acre shelter.

Emotional Debate Raging

Armed with new regulations that cover animal shelters and pet grooming parlors and stores, the county is challenging the shelter in administrative hearings at the Health Department, demanding that the shelter's population be cut in half. Coming at a time when animal-rights groups have focused increased attention on the treatment of animals, the action has ignited an emotional debate about how to deal with the enormous population of unwanted cats and dogs.

Letters of support for the privately run shelter have streamed in to newspapers. Elementary school classes have signed petitions urging the county not to ''murder'' the animals. A county legislator who has sided with the shelter received 1,500 calls in three days before a recent hearing.

The county defends itself against the barrage. ''If you just read the letters and you don't visit the shelter, you'd think that those mean county bureaucrats don't care about the animals and only want to kill them,'' said the Health Commissioner, Dr. Mark S. Rapoport. ''We're dealing with people who think they have the sole access to morality.

''The truth of the matter is that if this were a different county or a different year, we could have the exact opposite attack on us. People would be saying that we're not doing enough to stop the cruelty.''

Attrition Policy Suggested

The county says it is not advocating euthanasia. The shelter, officials said, can reduce its population simply by not taking in new animals until intensified adoption drives bring it into compliance with the county code, which limits it to 193 animals.

The shelter counters that to turn away a pet is to send it to certain death at one of the six other shelters in Westchester, all of which do kill unwanted animals.

The 50-year-old Elmsford shelter, which was established by the Central Westchester Humane Society and operates entirely on private donations, has always had a no-kill, no-turn-away policy, and it is one of only a few dozen in the nation that still do. Because of that policy, it has been under fire for years from national animal-protection organizations like the Humane Society of the United States and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

''We find Elmsford's policy totally unacceptable because it causes serious animal suffering,'' Barbara A. Cassidy, director of animal sheltering and control for the Humane Society, said in Washington in a recent interview. ''The concept of keeping an animal alive at all costs does not take into account the quality of an animal's life.

''To be tied out on a short chain of two to three feet in the hot sun and rain and to be urinated on by the dog next to it does not constitute quality of life.''

Standards Called Minimums

The county, however, had no way to regulate the shelter until two years ago, when a task force of health officials, pet-shop owners, animal shelter representatives and veterinarians wrote an amendment to the county sanitary code setting minimum space requirements and standards of cleanliness and safety.

The amendment was modeled on guidelines of the National Institutes of Health for the proper housing of laboratory animals.

''The standards are pretty much minimum standards as far as we're concerned,'' said Herman N. Cohen, senior vice president of the A.S.P.C.A. in New York City. ''They are standards that laboratories doing animal research - and even the worst shelter, if you will - should be able to comply with.''

The shelter has corrected a few violations, like rat infestation and the lack of a functioning toilet for employees, but the worst ones persist, the county says.

''The main problem is overcrowding, and all the others stem from that,'' said Christine M. Falco, an animal and vector control specialist for the County Health Department.

'Torturous' Conditions Reported

In 10 inspections over two years, she said, she found the animal population to be as high as 500. By day, she reported, most dogs were tied to fences and doghouses on chains two-thirds the size they should have been, while at night more than 100 dogs were chained in the main office, a garden shed and the cat room, among other places. Cats were kept two to a cage and often filthy, Ms. Falco said.

Sick animals, she went on, were housed with healthy ones. She said she had found medical records incomplete and workers often unaware of the nature of an animal's ailment - a problem since some illnesses, like sarcoptic mange, are easily transmitted to people. A leg wound in one dog went untreated for a month, Ms. Falco said, and cracks in cement floors contained old feces and urine.

Of all the animal bites reported last year from the county's animal shelters, half occurred at the Elmsford shelter, said Dr. Rapoport, the Health Commissioner. Dr. Rapoport said that he himself was bitten by a dog today as he toured the shelter.

''One morning,'' Ms. Falco said, ''I saw blood on newspaper on the floor, and when I asked what it was from, a worker said there had been a fight in the night and a dog's ear had been chewed off. He still hadn't seen a vet. Another dog with epilepsy, which was finally put to sleep, was chained to a broken toilet for seven years. To me, that's absolutely torturous.

''You get a lot of people who feel alive is better than dead, but the public doesn't understand that under some circumstances the kinder thing to do is to have the pet euthanized.''

'Better Than Death'

Mrs. Stone doesn't see it that way, nor do hundreds of her supporters. The shelter is cramped, granted, she said, but it is ''immaculate'' and the animals are happy. More important, she said, the animals are alive and still have a chance at being adopted.

''We're not saying this is ideal,'' Mrs. Stone acknowledged, ''but it is a heck of a lot better than death.''

Pointing to a sea of dogs, she said: ''See that English shepherd? He's brushed, dipped, inoculated, wormed and fed the best food. The animals don't suffer here. Some of them love the workers here so much they don't even want to leave.''

The shelter is pinning its dreams on plans for a new 40,000-square-foot shelter, to be built nearby in the town of Greenburgh. It would accommodate 1,000 animals. Several years ago the county set aside five acres of its land for the new shelter.

The Central Westchester Humane Society has raised $500,000 of the $1 million needed to start construction, which it hopes to do next spring. The total cost of the shelter is expected to be $4 million. #2-Year Exemption Asked Until the new shelter is completed, Mrs. Stone has asked the county to exempt the Elmsford Animal Shelter from the sanitary code for two years. County officials have resisted. ''The rationale for a two-year moratorium is that the new facility will be built by then, and we have no indication that it will be,'' Dr. Rapoport said. ''Our long-term goal is for them to have a functioning facility. But the number of animals and the amount of distress they're in can't be tolerated for that long a time.''

One county legislator, Paul J. Feiner, a Democrat whose district includes Elmsford, has criticized the Health Department for going after the shelter.

''The county has practically had a vendetta against the animal shelter,'' he said. ''Those backing the shelter are not crazies and kooks. They represent a cross section of people who are substantive and active in the community.''

Mixed Feelings

Ailsa Awalt, a resident of Somers, N.Y., believes Elmsford's approach to be the most humane. ''We treat animals the same way we do Styrofoam cups,'' she said. ''Once we're finished with them, we toss them aside. At least at Elmsford they are fed, they get medical attention and are patted once in a while.''

The Yonkers Animal Shelter, considered the best in Westchester by county health officials, does put older animals to death when the shelter gets too full. Its acting manager, Eleanor Schliman, has mixed feelings about Elmsford.

''I understand what she's trying to do, but unfortunately you can't save everything,'' she said. ''There's a point where your head has to take over your heart, and that's very hard.''

Photos: The Elmsford Animal Shelter has been accused by Westchester County officials of housing more than 400 dogs and cats in ''horrendous conditions.'' Christine M. Falco of the County Health Department inspected the shelter last week. (Joyce Dopkeen/The New York Times) (pg. B1); ''We're not saying this is ideal,'' said Mimi Stone, the head of the Elmsford (N.Y.) Animal Shelter, which will neither turn away a pet nor kill it. ''But it is a heck of a lot better than death.'' (Joyce Dopkeen/The New York Times) (pg. B3)